Why?

9.17.2010

The House

Previously I had refered to the house as 'Run Down'. Not the type of terminollogy that my pending real estate agent would prefer I use.

A more correct phrase would be ignored and taken advantage of. And it's no ones fault but my own.

We purchased the house roughly 6 years ago, luckily making it in before the peak. Not that there ever was much of a peak in Belfair, Wa. One of the reasons we bought it there...housing prices were low, tax rates in Mason County were lower than in neighboring Kitsap county, and the are had an in general quieter feel.

Like most first time home buyers, I felt rushed by the whole purchase process, more so because my wife and I convinced each other that rates were never going to get lower than the 5.75% we qualified for at the time, and we didn't buy a house RIGHT NOW, we were going to wake up to Carter type interest rates the next day. I do remember looking at the house prior to buying it, but not with the critical eye of a home buyer, but rather the frenzied eye of someone who wanted to get a home, ANY home, in what was very much a sellers market...Ah the heady days of the long ago early to mid 2000's.

Initially, we did things right...replaced the carpet in 4 rooms, and installed snap-laminate flooring in the kitchen over the 1978 linoleum prior to even moving in . But it didn't take long for me to begin cutting corners. I started calling myself 3/4 man...I would get the easy 3/4's of a given job done, then save the ending touches for later. Moving the clock forward 6 years, trying to get ready to put the house on the market, it is now later. ARGHHHH!!!

Inside, the house is dated, but not falling apart...some trim to fix, a hand rail in the stairs to replace, and closet doors to hang(that's right...the closet doors came down to re-do carpet and never went back up...the originals are LONG gone...see...like I said, it's stuff I allowed to happen...lazy).

Outside, when we purchased the house, it had what you would call a 'mature landscape' if you were advertising the house for sale. Me, I would call it over grown...and over grown with Satanic Ivy and Bamboo. ARGHHHH!!!!! Clearing a patch of ground just to have the ivy grow in in three weeks if you didn't already have something else back in. Having black berries from my neighbors yard go under my drive way to pop up in the middle of the moss field I call a yard.

And, did I mention I hate spiders. We have lots of spiders in the Pacific Northwest.

But, I am not alone in trying to get 6-years worth of work done in 2 months(well, two weeks now). My wife enjoys the inside stuff, painting and redecorating(staging). Outside to lend a hand(be the driving force actually), I have the Worlds Greatest Mom and Nana. My mom has been here 3 weekends in a row from when she gets off work until she has to head home Sunday to get her laundry done. This invaluable help being rendered despite the fact that she is not very keen on us moving! Oh, she understands the reasons behind it...she's just more than a little bummed because it is taking her Grand Kids and my wife further away. But, she has been 100% supportive, no matter what her feelings. Things are going to be tight to get the house on the market when I want it to be...without my moms help, it would never have happened.

Not without me throwing large amounts of money at contractors and yard work folks anyways...which I have been doing a little bit of. Watching a guy come in with his Kubota mini back-hoe and crew of guys to clear a 30 X 10 sections of ivy and black berries, and then having to write them a check is much less painfull than spending a weekend ruining my back pulling said ivy by hand.

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statement

"What did I want?

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, "The games' afoot!" I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin. I wanted Prester John and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be -- instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is."
-- Glory Road, Robert Heinlein